Buddy Holly! "Rave On!"

I remember it as if it were yesterday. The year was 1978. I was 12 years old. That’s when I saw the movie “The Buddy Holly Story” at the theatre starring Gary Busey as Buddy Holly.

I was so obsessed with that movie and the music that Buddy Holly created that I quickly bought Buddy Holly’s Greatest Hits that year and played that record every single day! That’s what initially inspired me to want to play the drums. My parents couldn’t afford a drum set so I made a makeshift drum kit out of a couple of padded kitchen chairs, a couple of bicycle rims and a sawed off old broom stick handle that I made and used as my drum sticks.

Wow! Those were the days! I eventually gravitated to teaching myself how to play the bass guitar because I always appreciated the sound of the bass and would ALWAYS hum/sing the bass lines to every song I heard.

Yes. Buddy Holly was a major musical influence on me.  It’s hard to believe his success lasted only a year and a half before his death in 1959 in an airplane crash.

“Rave On” was one of Holly’s last hits during his lifetime and one of my favorites.  
Although the song wasn’t written by Holly (co-written by his manager Norman Petty), he recorded it in January 1958 at Norman Petty's New Mexico studio where Holly laid down most of his hits. Petty wanted to give it to another act, but Holly protested and persuaded the songwriters to let him record it.

Holly is described as "the single most influential creative force in early rock and roll.” His works and innovations inspired and influenced later musicians, notably The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, and had a profound influence on popular music. Holly was also among the first group of inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.

In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Holly #13 among "The Fifty Greatest Artists of All Time".

I agree.